Financial Counseling: What’s it all about?

The main goal of the service is to help consumers emerge out from debt troubles and manage personal finances better.

The financial counselor is a professional who renders services without any conflict of interest. He also serves as an advocate and as a negotiator on behalf of his clients, who are mostly at financial risks. The professional’s role is non-conventional; he may assume various traditional roles like those of a solicitor, an accountant, or a social worker.

Needless to say, financial counseling is unique in that it merges several types of skills into a specialised and personalised counseling. In this service, the consumers’ concerns are treated and addressed in a more holistic manner. Health and social issues are also considered alongside their financial woes. In the end, the service brings about several feasible and logical solutions, appropriate referrals, and practical advices about how to resolve financial issues.

What are the main functions of financial counseling? Here are some of the top ways on how this type of counseling could be of help to you.

Better management of household expenses
Are you having trouble making both ends meet? You may need several advices and knowledge about personal finance and frugality. Consumers often overlook important and cost-effective measures when doing the groceries, using utilities, swiping your credit cards, or performing household chores. You could be surprised at simple, yet effective ways to save money through managing household expenses.

Understanding financial issues
How could the economy bear its impact on your finances? If you are clueless about how global news could affect you as a consumer, you should get enlightenment from a financial counselor. You should look at global issues from afar to better see the bigger picture and be warned about possibilities that could erode your finances.

Effective debt management
Are you having an uncontrollable level of debt? If you could not think of ways on how to allocate your current resources or income, let financial counseling present you more creative and logical ways to possibly emerge out from the situation unscathed. There are many strategies that you could take to manage your debt and your personal finances well. You may look at several available financial products that you could take to ease you out of your current troubles.

Dealing with debt collectors
Debt collectors may annoy you. How do you deal with them properly? Before tackling this problem, you may also opt to get into a debt settlement or informal agreement with your creditors so you could lower interest payments, reduce principal, or get more manageable terms.
Dealing with or avoiding bankruptcy

You may end up filing for bankruptcy, or worse, your creditor could file it for you. Financial counseling could offer and provide numerous ways on how to emerge out of bankruptcy, or better, to prevent it from happening.

Managing credit ratings
Credit scores are important. Your credit rating would be the first thing your future creditors would check if you are applying for any financial assistance or loan. Keeping it high would always be advantageous to you. But this task is not as easy as you think it is. Financial counselors could guide you make your credit history as attractive as possible to lenders.

Andrew Black has written many articles on financial counseling and debt consolidation. Andrew Black is also a regular contributor on the ALC blog

Money Management reference:

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